VOICE OF DETROIT: The city's independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

 SIX MORE CONNECTED TO SNYDER, ENGLER, BUSH, BUSINESSES

The 10 member PA 4 review team appointed by Snyder includes six African-Americans, likely an effort to counter allegations that the PA 4 move on Detroit is racially-motivated. 

Critics including prominent Detroit, state and national elected officials contend a state takeover of Detroit would leave 50 percent of the state’s African-American population under the control of emergency managers, in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. 

The daily media has prominently displayed photos of the team’s Black members and downplayed the role of state staff. The Detroit Free Press ran a banner headline declaring, “State review team for Detroit is met with praise.” However, they have ignored the role many of its members have played in furthering the Snyder agenda.  

Andy Dillon running unsuccessfully for governor in Democratic primary

ANDY DILLON, State treasurer.  Dillon conducted emergency manager classes for more than 40 people after PA 4 was enacted. He has authorized the renewed takeovers of Benton Harbor, the Detroit Public Schools, Ecorse and Highland Park under PA4, as well as the new PA 4 takeovers of Flint, Inkster and Pontiac.

He is an attorney who was president of DSC (Detroit Steel Co.) Ltd. until 1999, according to state records.  His company bought the closed McLouth Steel plant in Trenton in 1996 after an employee stock-ownership plan failed, leaving thousands jobless. DSC Ltd. never got the plant up and running. Current Wayne County Tax Records show the property owes $4, 219,201.19 in delinquent taxes. Although it has not paid for at least five years, it has never faced foreclosure.

McLouth Steel in ruins after Dillon company DSC, Ltd. failed to revive it

Dillon also worked as the managing director of Wynnchurch Capital, vice president of GE Capital and as a financial analyst at WR Grace.

Dillon, formerly Democratic Speaker of the House, went over to Snyder’s side after progressive candidate Virg Bernero, Mayor of Lansing, won the gubernatorial nomination. Bernero had advocated standing up to the state’s corporations and banks.

FREDERICK HEADEN has been director of the state Treasury’s local government services division since 1997.  Headen has been appointed by Governors John Engler, Jennifer Granholm and now Rick Snyder to serve on at least 15 review teams. He has authorized the takeovers of Benton Harbor, Ecorse, Flint, Highland Park, Inkster, and Pontiac.He formerly was legal counsel to the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, which frequently advocates privatization of public services. Its board members represent AT&T, Blue Cross, BorgWarner, Citizens Bank, CMS Energy, Comerica Bank,Compuware, Deloitte LLP, Detroit Economic Club, Dickinson Wright PLLC, DTE Energy, Dykema Gossett PLLC, Ernst & Young LLP (being sued for helping Lehman Brothers cook its books before its collapse); Hennessey Capital LLC, Hudson-Webber Foundation, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Kelly Services, Inc., Manoogian Foundation, Meritor, Inc. Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone, PLLC, PNC Financial Services, Rockbridge Growth Equity, LLC, W. E. Upjohn Institute and Wells Fargo Bank (recently implicated in laundering hundreds of millions in drug money.)

Brom Stibitz

BROM STIBITZ, senior policy adviser for the Treasury Department, was on the Flint review team with Headen and is on a current review team dealing with Highland Park Schools’ finances.  He was formerly legislative director for Dillon.. He chairs the Finance and Claims Committee under Dillon, which on Dec. 13 recommended approval of the state’s Recovery Act Funds agenda. Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson has said the state has failed to transfer those federal funds to local municipalities, but used them to plug holes in its own budget. Continue reading →

While Michigan criticizes Detroit for its debt, it is racking up its own with Citigroup

December 28, 2011 Bloomberg News

By Chris Christoff

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) — Michigan, whose joblessness led the nation during 2006-09, will issue $3.3 billion of variable-rate bonds — its largest-ever sale, according to treasury officials — to repay federal unemployment-benefit loans.

The two-year bonds underwritten by a unit of Citigroup Inc. were selling at a yield of 0.24 percent, said Tom Saxton, deputy state treasurer. That compares with estimated 3 percent interest on federal loans next year, Saxton said. Repaying the U.S. government by Dec. 31 will save as much as $100 million in interest and avoid federal penalties, he said.

“This is a good deal for the employer community,” he said.

The sale through the Michigan Finance Authority closes today. The state joins Texas and Idaho in tapping debt markets to repay unemployment loans after the 18-month recession that ended in June 2009. Michigan’s 9.8 percent jobless rate in November marked the first time in two years it’s been below 10 percent. The national rate for November was 8.6 percent.

Twenty-seven states and the Virgin Islands owed the federal unemployment trust fund a combined $39.3 billion as of Dec. 22, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. California owes the most, $9.7 billion, followed by New York and Michigan.

Michigan chose variable-rate bonds to take advantage of historically low short-term interest rates, Saxton said. He said that will give the state flexibility to convert the borrowing to long-term financing in 2012.

Two-year debt with a AAA rating yields 0.41 percent, compared with the average 2.82 percent since 1992, according to Bloomberg Fair Market data. Continue reading →

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson at Council meeting Sept. 13, 2011

By Diane Bukowski 

December 23, 2011 

Detroit—“A consent agreement consents to the takeaway, the giveaway of Detroit,” City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said during a public hearing Dec. 1. “It has a trigger that says if you don’t pay your bills on time, or numerous other situations, you end up on a slippery slope to an emergency manager (EM) within seconds. There is nothing to be gained from giving away our city, we don’t have that right.” 

Loud applause greeted her remarks, made in response to City Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown’s advocacy of such an agreement. 

“A consent agreement gives you tools so you can address the problem without an emergency manager,” Brown said during the hearing. “It maintains the democratic process because City Council and the mayor would still be making the decisions.” 

Gary Brown at Council meeting Sept. 13, 2011

He alleged that the Mayor and Council would have the powers of an EM, including breaking union contracts. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and the city’s dailies have taken the same position. 

Brown was the sole Council member not to sign a Dec. 15 letter to Gov. Rick Snyder authored by U.S. Congressmen John Conyers, Hansen Clarke, and Gary Peters and signed by 63 local and state elected officials. The letter requested a meeting with Snyder before further action under PA 4 was taken. 

Snyder cavalierly ignored the request. He has now moved to the second step of a PA 4 takeover, appointing a team to conduct a 60-day review of Detroit’s finances, which may take less time if Snyder so orders, under provisions of PA 4, He ordered the Flint review team to cut the time in half to 30 days. 

Detroit APTE Vide-President Cecily McClellan leads chants at Benton Harbor rally against EM

Despite Brown’s allegations, Public Act 4 does not give local officials the right to break contracts under a consent agreement. The act specifically exempts their ability to “reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement” under Sec. 19 1(k). It reserves that power for the state alone. 

It also gives the State Treasurer sole discretion to help draft and approve a financial “recovery plan” as part of the consent agreement, and sole discretion to terminate the agreement and move to an EM at any time. 

“A consent agreement shall provide that in the event of a material uncured breach of the consent agreement, the state treasurer is authorized to place the local government in receivership as provided under section 15,” PA 4 reads. 

Former DPS Board of Education President Carla Scott

The Detroit Board of Education, under then President Carla Scott, approved such a consent agreement under PA 4’s predecessor Public Act 72 in September of 2008. Only four months later, on Dec. 8, State Schools Superintendent Mike Flanagan terminated the agreement, and recommended an emergency financial manager. Governor Granholm appointed Robert Bobb shortly thereafter.

 This was despite the fact that on Dec. 1, 2008, as part of a “deficit elimination plan” required under the consent agreement, the Board agreed to close an additional 63 schools, eliminate 16,000 jobs, outsource numerous departments, regionalize other services, get $37 million in union concessions, and charge for textbooks.   

State schools superintendent Mike Flanagan

“The District has been in deficit for multiple years over the course of several decades,” Flanagan told Scott in his Dec. 8 letter. “During that time, the Michigan Department of Education’s interactions with the District have exposed numerous systemic issues including the failure to meet deadlines and requirements, the misappropriation and lapsing of significant amounts of federal dollars, and an inability to remedy its financial problems by taking appropriate action.” 

Flanagan completely ignored the fact that for five of the eight years the state cited in the schools’ budget history, from 2000 through 2005, the district was under state control, as a result of then Gov. John Engler’s hotly-contested 1999 takeover. The district had a $93 million surplus in 1999, and ended up with a deficit of over $300 million by the time that first takeover concluded. 

Protest against Detroit and DPS debt loads

The deficit was caused by rampant borrowing encouraged by bank representatives who came to monthly meetings with the state trustee. These included a $220 million loan to be paid back over 15 years and taken out of the schools’ state per-pupil funding. Detroiters voted overwhelmingly to cancel that debt. Nearly 90 percent of state per-pupil funding now is reserved to pay off the district’s debt.

The district is  a shell of its former self, and the state legislature is fast-tracking passage of bills that would eliminate any cap on charter schools, which will devastate public school systems state-wide because charters get funds originally allotted to public schools. 

The state is currently lobbying Mayor Bing and the Detroit City Council hard for their approval of a consent agreement, which PA 4 requires. 

Andy Dillon at re-election rally for Dave Bing

Treasurer  Dillon told reporters in a conference call Dec. 2, “I talked to the mayor today, and I talked to three of the city council members and there was a very positive tone of cooperation. So I think – well several council members have said publicly they would like a consent agreement, so I expect that we will work in cooperation with them and I told the mayor that we will coordinate with you so that we don’t interfere with the work that you have on your plate already.”

Nikos Photopoulus, leader of Greek electrical workers union, and 14 others face up to 5 years in prison for occupying power plant to stop shut-offs

Appeal by the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC)

Stop the prosecution of Nikos Photopoulos and his comrades from the  GENOP-DEH union immediately!

We have just been informed by representatives of the Greek public power union, GENOP-DEH, of the repression affecting 15 Greek members of the GENOP-DEH union.

Greek riot police storm plant

On 24 November 2011, squads of riot police (MAT) stormed the power company’s facilities in Mesogeion Avenue in Athens and violently cleared it of workers and trade unionists who had been staging a sit-in/occupation for a few days. The offices are responsible for cutting off the electricity supply to the thousands of working-class families who have refused to pay the new property tax imposed by the Greek government by order of the Troika (IMF-European Commission-European Central Bank), which is being levied through the electricity bills. The same offices are in charge of cutting off the supply to the thousands of families who, due to the crisis, can no longer pay their bills.

On 30 November 2011, 15 trade unionists, including GENOP-DEH General Secretary Nikos Photopoulos, appeared in court, charged with “obstructing the forces of order” and “obstructing the correct functioning of the public services”. They face prison sentences of 6 months to 5 years without parole. On the eve of the 1 December general strike called by the trade union confederations GSEE and ADEDY, the government decided it would be wiser to hold its fire; accordingly the court postponed its ruling until 10 January 2012.

GENOP-DEH demonstration against austerity measures in Greece

Throughout the world, the workers and peoples are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Greek workers and their trade union organisations as they engage in the battle against the Troika’s barbaric plans implemented by the Greek government. The workers’
actions are legitimate, just as the actions of the Greek power workers and their trade union to prevent the power disconnections and to demand the withdrawal of the new tax imposed by the government are legitimate.

No worker, no labour activist, no democratic labour organisation can accept this threat of repression, which would be a blow against all labour and democratic rights.

This is why the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC) has decided to inform all labour organisations around the world of these extremely serious facts, and to invite them to join in the effort, in whichever form they see fit, to demand that the Greek authorities immediately drop the legal proceedings against the GEOP-DEH union members, and to express their solidarity with them.

signed/
Louisa Hanoune, General Secretary of the Workers Party (Algeria)
Daniel Gluckstein, National Secretary of the Independent Workers Party (France )
Co-ordinators of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples

Messages should be sent to

GENOP-DEH Union :
main@genop.gr et press@genop.gr
(copy to be sent to the ILC : eit.ilc@fr.oleane.com)

Greek Prime Minister Papademos
internationalmediaoffice@primeminister.gr

Greek Minister of Labour
Ministry of Labour
40 Pireos Str. 10182 ATHENS – GREECE
Fax: +30 210 5295 186
info@ypakp.gr

Greek Minister of justice
Ministry of Justice
96, Messoghion Avenue 11527 Ambelopiki Athens –
GREECE
Fax: +30 210 7755835

Moratorium NOW! coalition rallied last year to suspend city’s debt payments

 JAN. 2 RALLY WILL ORGANIZE PARTICIPANTS TO GET SIGNATURES FOR REFERENDUM TO REPEAL PUBLIC ACT 4, FREEZING FURTHER ACTION

Dillon cites Detroit’s debt, names 60-day review team, says city officials
“either incapable or unwilling to manage its (sic) own finances”

TIME FOR WAR ON THE BANKS

By Diane Bukowski 

December 27, 2011  (See upcoming VOD stories on Snyder’s appointment of financial review team and what a “consent agreement” means under PA4.) 

State Treasurer Andy Dillon

LANSING – Michigan State Treasurer Andy Dillon made the main issue very clear in his Dec. 21 letter to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, recommending escalation of the state’s war on Detroit. The letter announced the second step in the PA 4 takeover process, a formal 60-day review of Detroit’s finances, cutting in half the original 30-day review.  Today, he named the review team.

Dillon told Snyder the CITY’S DEBT TO THE BANKS plays a prominent role in the alleged crisis. A banner headline in the Free Press blared, “DETROIT’S DEBT CRISIS EVEN WORSE THAN THOUGHT.” 

“The city has a mounting debt problem,” Dillon said. “In 2010, annual debt service requirements exceeded $597 MILLION. “As of June of 2011, the long-term debt of the city exceeded $8 BILLION . . . However, if one includes the unfunded actuarial pension liability of $615 million (offset by an almost $1.4 billion pension asset) and the unfunded other postemployment benefit liability of over $4.9 billion, the city’s total long-term debt liabilities are over $12 BILLION, which does not include substantial sums of interest which are over $4.9 BILLION.” 

Tashi Kiya tells Bing to cut city's debt service

Dillon said, “City officials are either incapable or unwilling to manage its (sic) own finances,” (without using spell-check, evidently), in the six page letter, which did not hold Wall Street accountable in any fashion. 

(Click on Detroit_PreRev_12-21[1]  to read Dillon’s Dec. 21 press release and on PrelimRevMemo12-21-11[1] to read his letter to Snyder.)

Dillon’s sneering comment on city officials typifies his and Snyder’s utter contempt for the Black elected leaders of Detroit and Michigan. They failed to honor a request from U.S. Congressmen John Conyers, Hansen Clarke, Gary Peters, and 63 other state and local officials that Gov. Snyder meet with them before taking further action against Detroit under Public Act 4. (Click on  Conyers and elected officials letter to Snyder re EM). 

 The letter stressed that the duo appear to be targeting majority-Black cities in Michigan for emergency manager (EM) takeovers.

Snyder earlier responded to a question about the “appearance” of racism from Channel Four’s Devin Scillian on Flashpoint Dec. 18.

 “It’s not racist, those cities have shrinking populations,” Snyder said, 

He ignored the fact  that the nation’s banks and mortgage companies targeted communities of color for criminal sub-prime loans. Later, when families could not pay their mortgages, they were evicted and often forced to leave their cities.

 Considering Snyder and Dillon are moving towards the appointment of an emergency manager (EM), their stress on the city’s debt is telling. PA 4 says an EM shall be responsible for “The payment in full of the scheduled debt service requirements on all bonds, notes, and municipal securities of the local government and all other uncontested legal obligations,” among other matters.  Continue reading →

ON TUES. JAN. 3, DPL ADMINISTRATION WILL BE MOVING EVERYTHING OUT OF THE FOUR BRANCHES SCHEDULED TO BE CLOSED.

PROTESTS TUES. JAN. 3, 2012  8 A.M.

LINCOLN BRANCH, 1221 E. 7 MILE     4 blocks east of I-75 f reeway)       MONTEITH BRANCH 14100 KERCHEVAL   (3 blocks west of Chalmers)

• NO MORE SCHOOL CLOSINGS!
• STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR NEIGHBORHOODS
• BUILD THE NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT!  

On Thursday, December 22, 2011, the people of Detroit stood up and said that we will not take the destruction of our libraries, our neighborhoods, our city and our future any more.  Eleven people occupied the Lincoln Branch Library and refused to leave until their demand was met to keep all of the libraries open.  The inside occupation was supported by about one hundred people who rallied outside the library to defend the occupation. Friends of the Monteith Library also rallied outside Monteith. 

Protesters outside Monteith Library December 22, 2011

At Lincoln, occupiers began to gather at 10:30 am, right after the library opened. Occupiers read out loud a classic book of the last civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Why We Can’t Wait.” As they read Dr. King’s moving description of the struggle for black equality and freedom in Birmingham in 1963, we heard loud honking from E. Seven Mile, as motorists expressed their support for the libraries. As the day progressed, more people called and came by to show support. 

At 4:00 pm, the police arrived and closed the library to the public, even though it was scheduled to remain open until 6:00 pm.  In fact, the police and library officials closed every library branch two hours early, and hurried the patrons and staff out of the buildings. At Lincoln, the police even closed the window blinds to prevent supporters and press from seeing the occupiers. 

In spite of police threats to charge every occupier who didn’t leave the library with felony charges for “obstructing,” the occupiers held their ground, chanting, “When the libraries are under attack, what do we do, stand up, fight back!,” and “Public libraries are a must! Detroit won’t go to the back of the bus!” 

The police arrested the occupiers, and took the occupiers out in handcuffs. Defenders outside the library did their best to slow the progress of the police, and once the occupiers were driven away in police cars and a paddy wagon, the defenders regrouped at the jail (near Nevada and Ryan), and picketed the jail, calling for the occupiers’ release. 

Movement attorneys found a sympathetic judge who signed writs of habeas corpus for all, which forced the police to let the occupiers go. 

No charges have been filed yet, but the outcome depends on how hard we fight this week to continue to defend our libraries. 

The December 22 library occupation showed the way to fight and win. If more people adopt this method, especially the young people of Detroit, we will be able to stop library and school closings, home evictions and the destruction of our neighborhoods. 

The Detroit Public Library Commission’s November 16 vote to close four Detroit libraries on December 22–Mark Twain, Monteith and Lincoln on the East Side, and Richard on the West Side, must not stand. 

Our libraries are essential cultural institutions. They are free public spaces outside school and home, where young people can explore the world beyond their daily experience, through books, movies, music and the internet. Libraries provide gathering space and social contact for young and old. Libraries offer everything from latchkey care for working parents, to job search support for unemployed people, to free classes and summer reading programs.

Gail Beasley said the closing hurts area seniors during Dec. 22 protest.

 For the students and neighborhoods that these libraries serve, and for Detroit as a whole, these library closings would be yet another devastating blow that we cannot afford, do not deserve, and should not accept. 

For far too long our youth and our city have been given second-class treatment and conditions. The Democrats and Republicans are united in systematically stripping our city of every essential service, from public schools to public libraries. This is the new Jim Crow, and we are organizing to defeat it. 

The current political powers-that-be claim that there is no money for the libraries, but we know that money is always found where there is the political will. If we fight to win, they will find the money.   

 Last year, when the young women of Catherine Ferguson Academy heard that their school was going to be closed, they began to organize to keep it open. The students believed in two things: 1) like Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., they refused to believe that “the bank of justice is bankrupt;” they refused to believe that there wasn’t enough money to keep their school open; and 2) they know that the rich and powerful are not the only force that can change history. 

The Catherine Ferguson students joined BAMN, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. As young BAMN leaders, they organized an occupation of their school, they sat down inside and refused to leave, and they organized hundreds of supporters to stand outside and defend them, and they won—they kept their school open. 

 We can follow this example of how to win and save our libraries. The young people who depend on these libraries and who believe in the right to have public libraries can answer the challenge of becoming our generation’s voice of freedom. Together with our families, friends, loved ones, neighbors and supporters there is no reason why we can’t keep our libraries from closing. 

Become part of the fight to end the second-class treatment of Detroit. Our libraries must stay open. We deserve nothing less! 

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) www.bamn.com

313-434-7075     contact@bamn.com                 Twitter: @followbamn

Charles Jones and Aiyana Stanley-Jones before she was killed by police

“Snitch” has lengthy criminal history

Prosecution has produced no other evidence 

Exam adjourned to Jan. 28 after Owens again refuses to testify

By Diane Bukowski 

December 23, 2011

DETROIT – Mertilla Jones, grandmother of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 7, killed by Detroit police last year in a SWAT-style assault on her home, held Aiyana’s mother Dominika Stanley tightly in her arms as both wept uncontrollably in an elevator at 36^th District Court in downtown Detroit Dec. 22. 

They had just left the third session of the preliminary exam for Aiyana’s father Charles Jones, 27, who faces first-degree murder and other charges in the killing of Je’Rean Blake two days before the police raid that killed Aiyana.. They had hoped her father would be able to be home with his six little boys for Christmas. 

Charles Jones and Aiyana's mother Dominika Stanley at her funeral; some of Jones' little sons are at left

“It will be another Christmas without Aiyana, and now it will be a Christmas without my son,” Jones said. “My sister is sick, I am sick, my family is suffering, but Officer Weekley, who killed Aiyana, is home for the holidays with his family on personal bond. It’s a total conflict of interest that Moran, the same prosecutor against my son, is also the prosecutor against Weekley.” 

The prosecution appears to be pulling out all stops to convict Jones, whose family believes it is a veiled attempt to get Weekley exonerated of charges of manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm. 

Weekley shot Aiyana to death on May 16, 2010, in the course of the Special Response Team raid that included tossing a “flash-bang” grenade through the window under which she was sleeping with her grandmother. An insider who saw the initial film taken by A & E’s “First 48” camera crew of the raid told VOD it shows without a doubt that Weekley aimed and shot deliberately into the house from its doorway within seconds after the grenade was thrown. 

Police officer Joseph Weekley, who killed 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones

However, he said, the cameraman took the first film out after he saw police rushing out with Aiyana’s body, and replaced it with a second tape. 

Detroit police said they were looking for Chauncey Owens, the fiancé of Aiyana’s aunt, who lived in the flat upstairs from Mertilla Jones and her family, in a poor neighborhood on Detroit’s east side. They said they had a warrant charging him in the Blake killing. 

There was a heavier than usual police presence in the court due to expectations that 36^th District Court Judge E. Lynise Bryant-Weekes might dismiss charges against Aiyana’s father this time.  Owens, who had confessed to shooting Blake, refused for the third time to testify that Jones gave him the gun. His attorney David Cripps, speaking for him, said the immunity agreement offered by the prosecution did not provide immunity against a charge of perjury. 

Chauncey Owens listens to his attorney at earlier exam

Owens pled guilty to second-degree murder with a provision that he would “tell the truth” about the matter in April of this year. This time, Moran told Owens he would face first-degree murder charges if he did not testify. Owens, however, remained calm, collected and silent. 

Cripps and Jones’ attorney Leon Weiss of the law firm of Fieger, Fieger, Kenney, Giroux and Danzig, objected that only the presiding judge in the case, Wayne County Circuit Court Richard Skutt, could vacate the plea agreement. Judge Bryant-Weekes agreed. 

Assistant Prosecutor Robert Moran

Moran has appeared to have no other case against Jones. He has not introduced the gun involved into evidence. He has produced no forensic testimony regarding fingerprints on the gun or other proof it belonged to Jones, or witnesses who said they saw Jones give Owens the gun to shoot Blake. 

But at the eleventh hour, Moran offered testimony from what Jones’ defense attorney Leon Weiss called a “jailhouse snitch,” Jay Schlenkerman, 49. Moran said Schlenkerman gave a statement November 26, 2011 that Owens bragged about the Blake killing to him and said Jones provided the gun, while both were incarcerated in Wayne County Jail. 

Cripps earlier said that Owens was being held “in high-security protection at Wayne County Jail, separate from other inmates,” after Owens’ sentencing in front of Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Skutt was adjourned for the fourth time Dec. 2. 

36th District Court Judge E. Lynise Bryant-Weekes

At Weiss’ request, Bryant-Weekes adjourned the preliminary exam until Thurs. Jan. 26 at 1:30 p.m. so that he could prepare a brief arguing that Schlenkerman’s testimony should be excluded, in response to a brief filed that morning by Moran to allow it. 

Despite Weiss’ passionate plea to allow his client a “reasonable bond” on a tether over the holidays, Bryant-Weekes remanded Jones back to Wayne County Jail.  Weiss said  Jones, who appears to have lost a significant amount of weight, is still grieving for his daughter. 

According to jail, court and Michigan State Police records, Schlenkerman has a lengthy criminal record.  He is Caucasian, has resided in various downriver suburbs, and runs a business called “Comet Floor Coverings,” based both in Rockwood and Brownstown Township according to Wayne County Clerk assumed names records. It has a Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Comet-Floor-Covering/202555589776866?v=info. 

Jay Schlenkerman; photo from Facebook

Schlenkerman was briefly brought into the courtroom by sheriffs, but through the courtroom door instead of the holding cells in back. A call to Wayne County Jail Dec. 24, however, revealed that he is still incarcerated. As he waited, expecting to testify that day, he appeared friendly and jocular with one police officer accompanying him.

 Schlenkerman was most recently detained May 28, 2011 by Brownstown Township Police, who alleged felony kidnapping in their request for a warrant. 

The charges were reduced in 33^rd District Court to aggravated domestic violence, a misdemeanor. Schlenkerman was also charged with violating a personal protection order, and contempt of court.  He pled “no contest,” and was sentenced to six months in jail with 34 days credit for time served, on July 1. That means his release date should have been approximately November 26, the date of his alleged statement. 

Schlenkerman business Comet Floor Covering's address is listed as 32029 Dixie Manor Rd. in Rockwood, MI; however the Zillow website says this is a single family-home.

Schlenkerman also received 18 months probation, during which he is to have his driving privileges revoked for 36 weeks, cannot use alcohol or drugs, or have any contact with the victim. 

In chronological order, Schlenkerman’s  prior criminal record is as follows: 

• 7/24/99: one count misdemeanor domestic violence, after arrest by the Southgate police; sentenced to 93 days in jail.
• 5/26/2000: one count misdemeanor operating while intoxicated and one count felony operating while impaired, 3^rd offense notice, after arrest by Melvindale police. Ninety days Wayne County Jail, two years probation.
• 8/29/2000:  misdemeanor driving with license suspended, revoked, denied, arrested by Dearborn Heights police. Ninety days in jail.
• 3/14/2001:  misdemeanor driving with suspended license, misdemeanor alcohol open container in vehicle, arrested by Taylor Police. Sixty days in jail, 12 months probation.
• 11/27/2001: misdemeanor driving with suspended license, arrested by Michigan State Police in Lenawee County.  Thirty-five days in jail.
• 4/4/2002: misdemeanor driving with suspended license, 2^nd or subsequent charge, arrested by Monroe County Sheriffs, fines and costs.
• 10/17/2002: misdemeanor driving with suspended license, 2^nd or subsequent charge, arrested by Blissfield police; 93 days in jail, six months probation.
• 12/13/2003: misdemeanor operating while intoxicated, 3^rd offense notice, arrested by Rockwood police; 60 days in jail, 2 years probation.
• 8/9/2005:  Assaulting, resisting, obstructing police officer under MCL 750,81D1, a two year felony, arrested by Northville Twp. police; 60 days in jail.
• 9/29/2005: misdemeanor driving with suspended license, 2^nd or subsequent offense, arrested by Lenawee County Sheriff. One year in jail.

Mertilla Jones (l) at candlelight vigil for Aiyana, with her father Charles Jones and mother Dominika Stanley at right

In many of the cases, Schlenkerman had numerous instances of “capias,” or failure to appear for a hearing, including sentencing hearings. There is no record that bench warrants were issued for his arrest in these instances. 

According to Michigan law, a third or subsequent offense of drunk driving carries a term of up to five years in prison, no matter how long ago the previous offense occurred. A second or subsequent offense of operating with a suspended or revoked license carries up to one year in prison. 

Wayne County records show that Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Maggie Drake sentenced Schlenkerman to 2 days to 5 years in state prison for probation violations,in February of 2006, the most severe sentence he received. But State Police records do not show that sentence was carried out and he is not listed on the Michigan Department of Corrections Offender Tracking Information website.

Occupy protesters shut down ports in Oakland

By Judith Scherr

December 13, 2011

OAKLAND, California, Dec 13, 2011 (IPS) – Occupy movements in Oakland, California; Portland, Oregon; and Longview, Washington claimed victory Monday when they prevented workers from loading or unloading ships at the three ports.

“We shut it down, people, we shut it down,” Anthony Leviege, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) member, told the cheering crowd at Oakland’s Berth 55, just before 10 a.m. local time.

“I’m impressed that so many people got up at 5 o’clock in the morning… We can’t stop here.”

About 800 people showed up for the pre-dawn action in near-freezing weather, chanting, “Whose port? Our port!” and holding placards that called for “Solidarity With Longshoremen Against the One Percent” and “Cerremos Wall Street del Puerto”.

Protesters shut down ports/Photo by Judith Scherr

The protests, stretching from San Diego to Anchorage, Alaska, aimed at the control of the terminals by those whom the Occupy Movement has dubbed the “one percenters”, especially Goldman Sachs, primary investor in terminal operator SSA Marine.

The port action was just the latest in the tactics of the nimble Occupy Movement that, in Oakland, began with tent camps, twice destroyed by police. Last week it changed course and occupied foreclosed homes and on Monday, it rallied supporters to shut down work at the port.

“What is amazing about this movement is that it refuses to be dismantled,” said activist and retired university professor Angela Davis, speaking at an afternoon rally in downtown Oakland before the second wave of picketers left for the port.

“The occupy movement has had its tents destroyed, has had its encampments dismantled,” Davis said, adding that the police and corporations believed the movement would die when the camps were crushed, but “from those ashes, the occupy movement has risen once again, like a phoenix rises.”

To prevent port workers from on and off loading ships, an arbitrator had to certify the picket line was a health and safety issue for the workers.

Scott Olson, wounded during Oakland police attack, returns to the battle

Although the determination was made in the morning for both morning and evening shifts, a crowd estimated in the thousands and led by Scott Olson, the young Iraq War veteran hit in the head with a police projectile in Oakland on Nov. 2, marched back to the port in the late afternoon to renew the picket and celebrate victory.

They stayed the night and ended up blocking the 3 a.m. shift at the port, according to KPFA radio.

Controversial closure

The decision to shut down the port, however, was controversial both inside and outside the Occupy Movement, even though targeting Goldman Sachs and its role at the port was not in dispute among occupiers.

“Goldman executives can take credit for many of the financial crises of the last decade, including insider trading, fraud, credit default swaps, and subprime mortgages,” wrote Michael Siegel, attorney and Occupy Oakland activist.

Still, most unions sat out the port blockade, neither condemning nor supporting it.

The Oakland Education Association did, however, strongly endorse the action, with Betty Olson-Jones, OEA president, directly linking port operations to Oakland school needs.

Truck driver shows solidarity with shutdown

Private maritime businesses in the Port of Oakland “use rent-free public land [that] generates 27 billion dollars annually in trade”, Olson-Jones said. She suggested that taxing them one percent would be enough to pay off Oakland school debt, restore full library services and rehire ever laid off library worker.

While some longshore workers were prominent individually in organising the port shutdown, union leadership opposed it. Much of the controversy centred on a labour dispute between the ILWU and Export Grain Terminal (EGT) in Longview, Washington.

Both the West Coast Occupy movements and the ILWU say that EGT broke a promise to hire ILWU workers, and both want the pledge fulfilled.

Meanwhile, an EGT company spokesman said the company tried to negotiate an agreement with ILWU, but that the union wanted a pension plan that was too expensive, reported the New York Times.

When the Occupy Movement began organising against EGT without the ILWU’s blessing, ILWU President Robert McEllrath reacted, telling the Occupy Movement to stay out of the conflict.

The ILWU’s fight for democracy “is the hard-won right to chart our own course to victory”, he wrote, warning that the union doesn’t want outsiders to adopt the struggle as their own, given the danger that they might do so “in order to advance a broader agenda… destructive to our democratic process and [one that] jeopardises our over two year struggle in Longview”.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan pleaded with Occupy Oakland not to persist with the shutdown.

“The Port of Oakland is not the home of the one percent,” he wrote. “Rather, it generates over 73,000 jobs in the region and is connected to more than 800,000 jobs across the country. It is one of the best sources of good paying blue-collar jobs left in our city.”

The port commission wrote that the shutdown would “hurt working people and harm our community”. Even some within Occupy Oakland expressed concern that independent truckers would lose a day’s pay. During the morning picket at Berth 55, Alameda County sheriffs tried crossing the picket line twice to take a bus into the port area. Blocked the first time by pickets, sheriffs turned the bus around and returned on foot, using batons to force their way through the picket line and line up between protesters and port property. No one was hurt or arrested.

The second time the sheriffs attempted to drive into the port area, four or five picketers with bicycles stood ground directly before the bus, which soon left the area.

Protests in other cities

From Portland, organiser Tomas Bernal said in a phone interview that the 300-400 protesters there also succeeded in shutting down the port in the morning. “It’s quite historic – with only two and a half weeks to prepare,” he said.

The Portland terminals were also shut down in the evening, Jamie Partridge, another Portland activist, told IPS in an email.

In Longview, where the EGT terminal is located, about 100 protesters arrived at the port’s main entrance. Workers were reportedly sent home due to safety concerns.

But in Vancouver, Long Beach and San Diego, protesters were unable to stop work at the port, while in Seattle police reportedly used flash-bang grenades and pepper-sprayed demonstrators, blocking one of the terminal entrances and arresting 11.

The Seattle Times reported that organisers claimed victory because the workers at two terminals didn’t come to work. The port, however, sent out a press release saying the protest had minimal impact.

(Click on http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/us/occupy-oakland-angers-labor-leaders.html to read New York Times story, which despite its headline, is rather congratulatory towards the Occupy protesters.)

Leaders, community mobilize for fightback rally Jan. 2, will focus on petition drive to repeal PA 4

More actions at auto show Jan.9; Gov. Snyder’s house MLK Day Jan.16  

By Diane Bukowski 

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson speaks at rally September 10, 2011

DETROIT – The New Year will open with a city-wide rally Monday,  Jan. 2, to save Detroit from the clutches of an emergency manager. Organizers say there is no time to waste if Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s planned takeover is to be stopped.  

They believe it would further devastate the city with a massive loss of jobs, city services, and any hope for Detroit’s youth.  Under Public Act 4 (PA4), a takeover would mean the complete disenfranchisement of the people of the largest Black-majority city in the world outside of Africa.  

The rally, called by City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, U.S. Congressmen John Conyers and Hansen Clarke, and community groups including Moratorium Now!, will be held at Tabernacle Baptist Church on Grand River and West Grand Blvd. at 5 p.m.  

“We will not be re-enslaved,” Councilwoman Watson told an organizing meeting in Council chambers Dec. 16. “The state still owes us $220 million, which would immediately resolve our deficit. The state additionally has never sent the $2 billion in federal American Recovery Act funds it received to our cities.” 

Youth rally against Detroit takeover in Lansing Feb. 23, 2011

Councilwoman Watson was the first leader to initiate a fightback against the legislation that would become PA 4, bringing thousands to rally on the Lansing capitol steps in February, and co-coordinating legal actions afterwards.  

Organizers present at the meeting included Isaac Robinson and Marion Brown of Congressman Conyers’ office,  WHPR talk show hosts Richard Hairston and Lee Gaddies, who is also president of the 5,500 member Bagley Community Council, the city’s largest block club,  Sherry Gay-Dagnogo of the National Congress of Black Women, attorneys with the National Lawyers Guild, representatives of Moratorium NOW! and Occupy Detroit, and many rank-and-file community members. 

They resolved that the Jan. 2 rally will focus on the mobilization of thousands of Detroiters to circulate petitions for the referendum to repeal PA 4. Once at least 161,000 valid signatures are collected, the Act will be frozen until Michigan voters have their say at the polls in November, 2012.  

The act incorporates cities already under an emergency manager, and knocked the original legislation, PA 72, off the books. That should mean that managers currently in place in Benton Harbor, Ecorse, Flint, Hamtramck, Highland Park, and the Village of Three Oaks, and the school districts of Detroit and Inkster, would have to step down pending the November, 2012 vote, in addition to the suspension of efforts to take over Detroit.

State Attorney General Bill Schuette, however, has said that he has not decided whether PA 72 would be reinstated if PA 4 if frozen. 

This Jan. 4 photo shows Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's home near Ann Arbor. Snyder said Wednesday that he's staying in his home so his daughter doesn't have to change schools. Snyder plans to use the official governor’s residence in Lansing for meetings and receptions. (AP Photo/Kathy Barks Hoffman)

Organizers said the Jan. 2 rally will be only a first step. They also proposed actions at the opening of the International Auto Show Jan. 9, and outside Gov. Snyder’s home in Superior Township on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Jan. 16, 2012. Revs. David Bullock of the Rainbow:PUSH coalition and Charles Williams II of the National Action Network have put out the call for that action.  

Several organizers favored targeting international commerce at the Ambassador Bridge, and the Detroit casinos, which oppose an increase in state and city taxes on them from 18 percent to 23 percent, proposed by State Rep. Rashida Tlaib in a House bill this session. There was also a call for an economic boycott of Michigan businesses if Snyder does not back down. 

U.S. Congressman Hansen Clarke and John Conyers, Jr.

Councilwoman  JoAnn Watson announced that U.S. Congressmen Conyers, Clarke, and Gary Peters sent a letter with the signatures of  sixty-six elected local, state and national leaders to Gov. Snyder Dec. 15, asking that he meet with them prior to taking any further action under PA 4. The state is currently conducting an initial 30-day review of Detroit’s finances, the first step in imposition of an EM.

(Click on  Conyers and elected officials letter to Snyder re EM  to read entire letter.)  

The signatories include all of Detroit’s state delegation along with other Democratic legislators, and eight of nine Detroit City Council members. Council member Gary Brown, who has been pressing for a “consent agreement” with the State, did not sign the letter. 

Slavemaster Snyder uses PA 4 lash on Michigan's majority-Black cities

The letter notes that PA 4 destroys both voting and collective bargaining rights in Michigan.  

The leaders add, “We also have a particular concern that the Emergency Manager law may be being disproportionately applied to disenfranchise persons of color. As a matter of fact, it is our understanding if you choose to appoint an Emergency Manager to oversee Detroit, that would mean that approximately 50% of all the African American citizens in the State would be living under the authority of unelected managers.” 

State Sen. Phil Pavlov plots to pass PA 4 legislation at hearing Feb. 8, 2011

The letter continues, “We would also note our serious concern that your Administration may be pursuing additional stop-gap legislation in an effort to thwart any voter led initiative seeking to revoke the underlying Emergency Manager Law. If true, that would mean that not only would voters in covered jurisdictions be unable to elect their own representatives, but voters state-wide would be prevented from using the initiative process to best reflect their own views and judgments.”  

State Sen. Phil Pavlov has introduced Senate Bills 0153 through o158, which would effectively perform the same functions as PA 4. The bills are currently in the Senate Education committee and allegedly not expected to be acted on before the current session expires.  

On Dec. 1, Conyers additionally wrote U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, with a copy to Rep. Lamar Smith, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, asking that the Justice Department review and take action against PA 4. Conyers contended that the act violates the U.S. Constitution’s contracts clause and the Voting Rights Act.

Click on U-S-Representative-John-Conyers-Jr-s-Letter-to-Attorney-General-Regarding-Michigan-Emergency-Manager-December-1-2011[1] to read letter. 

Inquiries by VOD to Gov. Snyder’s press representative Sara Wurfel and to a representative of U.S. Attorney General Holder regarding their responses to the letters had not been answered before press time.  

The organizing committee for the Jan. 2 rally will meet again Friday, Dec. 23 at 4 p.m. in council chambers. For further information, call City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson’s office at 313-224-4535.

Rally in Benton Harbor, first city to be hit by PA 4

“Swap termination” would amount to one-third of city’s 2012 budget 

Massive lay-offs, severe wage cuts, gutting of city services, drastic increases in water rates, taxes, and sale of assets likely under EM

By Diane Bukowski 

December 19, 2011 

DETROIT – According to reports from Moody’s and Fitch bond ratings services, banks plan to rob Detroit of $400 million, one-third of its 2012 budget, if an emergency manager is installed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

(Center) Stephen Murphy of Standard and Poor's and Joe O'Keefe of Fitch Ratings are flanked by then Detroit CFO Sean Werdlow (l) and Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams in 2005 as they bludgeon City Council into borrowing $1.5 billion in pension obligation certificates, a debt that is repeatedly coming back to haunt Detroit.

“The state appointment of an emergency manager would in turn trigger a termination event [default] under the city’s swap agreements,” Moody’s said Dec. 13. The “swap agreements” relate to $1.5 billion in pension obligation certificates the city borrowed in 2005 during the Kwame Kilpatrick administration, from Zurich-based UBS AG and New York’s  Siebert Brandford Shank & Co. (SBS). 

The city defaulted once before on that debt, in 2009. Then Mayor Ken Cockrel’s administration forestalled a likely bankruptcy by agreeing to have Detroit’s casino taxes go directly to a bank trustee to ensure payment of the debt. A trustee was already overseeing its revenue-sharing taxes.

MGM Grand, one of Detroit's three casinos; a bank trustee rakes in all of Detroit's casino tax revenues to ensure debt pay-off.

Detroit’s Channel 7 interviewed Pat O’Keefe, of O’Keefe and Associates (see video above.) 

“Since they [Detroit] have been struggling for so long,” O’Keefe said, “they have a number of bond agreements that cause acceleration in some of the debts if an emergency financial manager is appointed. As a consequence it is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that will cause the city of Detroit to continue to hemorrhage even more cash because of the accelerated payments on some of these bonds.” 

Wall Street is not waiting for an emergency manager, however, to shake Detroit down.

On Dec. 15, it raked in $211.6 million on a water bond sale of $484 million, according to the Wall Street Journal (click on Detroit Sells Muni Bonds at a Price WSJ, 12/15/11 and on http://dwsdupdate.blogspot.com/2011/12/emergency-financial-manager-appointment.html   for more complete information). 

U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox

The ratings agencies said Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) bonds, which previously had up to AAA ratings, are under scrutiny because DWSD belongs to the city. They said buyers were more willing to invest in the bonds after U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox’s November 11 decision severing much of Detroit’s control over the DWSD, but only at a hefty price. 

What does this mean for the people of Detroit, the largest majority-Black city in the world outside of Africa, and the country’s poorest city? What are the implications for its its surrounding suburbs? 

First of all, the water bond sale portends a hefty increase in water rates for one-third of Michigan’s population, which is served by DWSD, and more shut-offs for those who cannot afford them, this spring. Further lay-offs and service cutbacks will also result.  

James Fausone, Board of Water Commissioners chair

Since the Board of Water Commissioners, newly reconstituted under a consent agreement with Cox in February, must have a supermajority of its seven votes to approve rates and contracts, its three suburban representatives have veto power over both.   

The chair of the BOWC is James Fausone, who is already connected with a waste-to-energy conversion contractor like Synagro. It is likely that other Commissioners will hand out more costly private contracts to their friends, further depleting DWSD funds and putting the burden on its customers. (Click on  http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/11/10/cox-axes-detroiters-control-over-water-department/ for further information.)

Cutting one-third of Detroit’s budget of more than $1.2 billion is virtually unimaginable.

According to the Crain’s article cited earlier, the city administration had great difficulty getting its creditors to agree to take control of its casino tax revenues instead of calling in $4oo million then.

French demonstrators march against pension cutbacks earlier this year; Fitch just downgraded France's bond ratings as well.

Where will they turn now to avoid economic disaster? The city’s pension funds, worth $6 billion, are likely the first target, low-hanging fruit for UBS and SBS. Mayor Bing earlier targeted them for a takeover by the Municipal Employees Retirement System, based in Lansing. 

Faced with similar economic distress, other municipalities and companies have eliminated health benefits for retirees, and in the case of bankruptcy, even halved their pensions, a solution the city of Vallejo, California resorted to. (Click on http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/31/vallejo-bankruptcy_n_816060.html for complete information.) 

If an emergency manager takes over, he would also have the power to sell DWSD, the third largest water and sewerage system in the county,  lock, stock and barrel. (Click on dwsd_fact_sheet[1] for complete description of DWSD assets.)

Water pump station in Pontiac, Michigan

Pontiac’s emergency manager Louis Schimmel just put on the auction block 11 water-pump stations, five fire stations, the public library, the police station, two community centers, two landfills, and two cemeteries. 

Schimmel told Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press that because he is required to hold a public hearing anytime the city has assets to sell, he might as well put everything on the list. No one showed up for the public hearing he held Dec. 20. 

“We just want the option,” the Free Press quoted Schimmel. “We don’t want to come back piece by piece.” 

Fitch Ratings put the city between a rock and a hard place, squarely on the back of its workers and residents, many of whom already live below the poverty level. 

Fitch red flagged the movement to repeal Public Act 4, which has gained steam since Snyder began a state financial review Dec. 6, the first step in the appointment of an EM. As noted in the article above, a Jan. 2 town hall meeting in Detroit has been called by City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson and U.S. Representatives John Conyers and Hansen Clarke, which will focus on ramping up the signature-gathering.

 “If Act 4 is suspended, avenues for addressing the city’s financial difficulties in the near term will narrow,” Fitch said, indicating that it will not let up on its ratings war against Detroit no matter which route is taken.

The need for a massive fightback by working and poor people against the reign of the nation’s banks over basic needs like water, food, housing, utilities and jobs is now more than ever glaringly apparent.

March during Oakland, CA general strike November 17